


Father's Lullaby

by yongcentric



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Angst Foreshadowing, Angst and Tragedy, Angst get ready for the angst everyone!, Angst with Sad Ending, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Big Brother Wilbur (Wilbur Soot), Blood and Injury, But also, Canon Compliant, Character Death, Character Death In Dream, Dadza Vibes such big Dadza Vibes, Dave | Technoblade and Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit are Siblings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Angst, Family Bonding, Family Fluff, Gen, Good Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Insane Wilbur Soot, Insomnia, Little Brother Tommy (TommyInnit), Mild Gore, Nightmares, No Romance, Not Really Character Death, Other, Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Sibling Bonding, Sibling Dynamic is so strong in this one, Sleepyboisinc - Freeform, Tommy is a little shit, Wilbur Soot Needs a Hug, Wilbur Soot-centric, but they made us suffer ok. the canon lore is terrifying, but we love him, don't mind shipping this is just a family fluff!!!, he literally just vibes in his bar, i say it's a family fluff and then make it angst as fuck nhhh, yes both those tags coexist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27858689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yongcentric/pseuds/yongcentric
Summary: What would happen now when Phil found out what happened to Tommy? What would Techno think? How shitty of a brother was Wilbur must be to leave his brother like this?“Am I really going to die, Will?”The naivety in Tommy’s voice broke his heart a thousand times over.*From the day Phil adopted him, he knew that Wilbur Soot was a peculiar child. He held a haunting anxiety inside of him, one which transformed into nightmares that left him shaking and terrified at night. The only thing that'd help him sleep was hearing the lullaby his father sung, something about a made up place called L'Manberg.
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Niki | Nihachu & Wilbur Soot, No Romantic Relationship(s), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 10
Kudos: 103





	Father's Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

> Wilbur Soot-centric fanfiction because the world is DIRE need of more of them!!! + ofc, we have to load it with sleep bois family dynamic moments and angst because what even is minecraft rp without those? I hope you enjoy.
> 
> this fic was inspired by @sunaway_ on twitter/instagram, please check 'em out :D

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilbur has a nightmare, one that feels a bit too real for comfort.

Wilbur was alone.

He lay in an empty meadow. Trees bordered its edges, their thick, dark trunks holding up branches brimming with juicy fruit and vividly colored flowers. A river flowed in front of him, under a large outcropping of rock. It seemed to snake through the land and extended beyond the horizon in either direction. A magnificent oak tree shaded him from above and a soft, lilac blanket pressed against the bare soles of his feet. A straw picnic basket was beside him, from which the smell of freshly baked bread wafted from. The atmosphere was humid and the soft drone of clicking cicadas filled the air.

He sat up. His eyes darted this way and that as he attempted to calculate where he was, but his mind offered no explanation. His head hurt. He groaned, clutching his forehead.

Unexpectedly, the idea of being lost didn't discomfort him. Why would it, when Wilbur knew so surely that he was safe? He didn't know when he'd acquired this fact – perhaps it was an acute knowledge he’d seemingly carried his whole life, like the ability to walk or speak English. Here – wherever he was – was dominated by lush green fields, peppered with rosy, bright flowers that exuded sweet scents, running over a landscape of soft, rising slopes. The sinking sun in the horizon painted the sky above a milky light pink, long strands of thin white clouds streaked through it. As he laid back down on the blanket, the smell of dew from what must’ve been last night’s rain lulled Wilbur to a deep, drowsy calm. Black tar gathered in goopy puddles and reached out to poke his feet with slimy fingers. _Yes _,__ Wilbur thought, closing his eyes. _This place is wonderful._

Wait, black tar?

His eyes snapped open and he swiped his feet back hastily. The vivacious liquid that’d been sneakily inching closer froze. The movement was so human, like a child who’d been caught trying to steal cookies from the sweet jars, that it sent shivers down his spine. The liquid pulsed, sending large ripples over it’s inky body, and then retracted, slithering backwards through the grass like a snake escaping a hunter. In a matter of seconds, it’d vanished. The only sign that anything had been there at all was the bit of crumpled grass on which it'd stood and the singed edges of the blanket that’d been touched by it. He watched, fascinated, as thin tendrils of wispy smoke rose up from the burnt corners. What was that?

“Well, aren’t you going to get it?”

He startled at the sound of Tommy's voice. There'd been no sound of approaching footsteps, no shadow that he caught from the corner of his eye, Tommy had quite literally appeared from thin air. He examined his brother with eyes as wide as saucer plates, but there was nothing peculiar to note about him that could suggest he'd learned the supernatural ability to teleport. In fact, Wilbur thought, he looked as normal and Tommy-like as he could. Fluffy blonde hair, a green ascot tied around his neck, dressed in his favorite red and white shirt and a snarky grin on his face that practically screamed mischief.

“The hat’s over there.”

“What?” he said, breaking out of his haze.

“I’m assuming you’re looking for the hat. It’s not here, it’s besides the river.”

Tommy waited expectantly for an answer but Wilbur only continued to stare at him, perplexed.

He frowned, a deep furrow appearing between his squatted eyebrows. “You’re acting all strange, Wilbur.”

“Oh… I am?”

“Yeah, you are,” Tommy said. “You’re acting really strange, man.”

“How so?”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost or some shit. But I know I’m quite terrifying myself, so it’s understandable if you’re scared because of me. You can admit it now, it’s okay.”

“No, I was just–I was looking at the tar.”

“What?”

“I’m referring to the bit that was right around… ” Wilbur’s voice declined to silence. He looked around. There was a purple blanket with perfectly threaded edges, smooth grass spread beneath him and fat bumblebees that lazily drifted past him. There wasn’t a single trace of the liquid left behind.

Tommy realized this, too. His smile fell, replaced by a look of deep concern. “You sure you’re doing alright, big man?”

He laughed nervously. He’d sounded like a mad man, mentioning tar and all that, hadn’t he? “I’m feeling fantastic.”

“Right." He sounded unconvinced.

“Don’t worry about me. I just was a bit dizzy before.” He didn’t tell Tommy that "dizziness" was putting it very mildly. That a more accurate description would’ve been feeling like he’d been ripped from one plant into another and was now suffering through the awful effects of intergalactic space travel.

Not that he’d ever say that, though. Wilbur hated having Tommy worry for him. Made him feel like a shitty older brother.

"You don't need a glass of water or something?"

"You're going to transform into my mother at this rate. Next thing you know, you'll start calling me 'Wilby' and making me hot soup."

Tommy's face crumpled into a displeased scowl. "No! I mean – it’s not like I was gonna bring you a glass even if you were sick. But!" he added before Wilbur could say anything, "They say its the thought that counts, anyways."

He snorted. “What a Tommy thing to say.’

“Why do you say it like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is. You’re becoming predictable.”

“How dare you,” he roared. “I am not predictable!”

“You do the same things every time," he pointed out. "Avoid awkwardness in a conversation with a snarky joke, make an egotistical comment, become extremely defensive when someone says something against you–”

“Stop it." Tommy huffed indignantly, crossing his arms.

“See, you’re not even denying it," he laughed.

“Shut up!"

He complied, zipping his lips together. Despite the unsettling start, Wilbur had decided that today was still a good day, one which was too good to be spoiled by anything, even dissolving into bickering quarrels with Tommy, as tempting as they were.

"Anyway, what were you saying before? Something about a hat?”

“Yeah, I was referring to Niki’s sunhat.” He pointed just past Wilbur to the river bank. “It got blown off by the wind while you were sleeping." He'd been sleeping? "I was trying to tell you to go get it but I guess you couldn’t hear me.”

Wilbur frowned. With his eyebrows knitted together, he looked exactly like Tommy had when he was confused. “What do you mean?”

“What do you mean ‘what do you mean’? It’s Niki’s hat! She accidentally left it inside her picnic basket. We're meant to return it to her next morning.”

Oh, Wilbur thought, following Tommy’s finger to the hat. It was dangerously positioned at the edge of the stony riverbank, far too close to toppling into the water. His eyes landed on the yellow bow, the symbolic stamp of Niki's property. It was definitely hers, just as everything else was, he realized. The fluffy blanket, the basket, all the food inside, too; the braided Easter bread, buttered loaves, crisp blueberry tarts, freshly squeezed raspberry juice and fruit pudding.

The epiphany triggered the rest of his memories. Slowly, they resurfaced. Tommy and Wilbur had planned this picnic over two weeks ago, as soon as they’d found out that Techno and Phil would be again leaving for the Antarctic, in fact. Knowing how lonely it became with half their family missing, they needed a way to distract themselves. That’s what they’d done – what they’d clearly accomplished in doing, judging by the current scene. How could he have forgotten it all?

“Race you to it.”

Wilbur snapped out of his thoughts. “What? You can’t race to it, Tommy. It’s a hat.”

“You so totally can.”

“No, you _can’t _.”__

 _ _“__ You can, you can!” Tommy insisted. “Or are you just making excuses for yourself, old man?”

Now, he was offended. Pulling on his boots, he crouched down in a starting run position. Tommy wooed and squatted down next to him.

“I’m going to count till three. You start running after that,” Tommy said. Wilbur nodded.

“One…” he began.

He dug his heels into the dirt, prepared to launch off. A fiery determination to win the race was lit inside him.

“Two…”

Suddenly, Tommy flew past him with lightning speed. Wilbur saw a flash of his red sneakers as he sprinted ahead. “Three!” he called out gleefully. By then, he was already less than a foot from the river.

It took Wilbur a minute for the realization to sink in. Then, he began running. “Hey, dickhead! Come back,” he yelled angrily. His feet came to a halting screech as he pulled up beside the river.

Tommy was bent down and carefully inspecting the predicament the hat was in. Balanced between two clumps of grass and tilted towards the river's surface, all it’d take was a gentle shove from the wind and it’d fall right to its doom, where it’d be undoubtedly devoured and never seen again. Wilbur had a thousand different insults pressed against his tongue but he bit down on each of them to silently watch him work. Tommy had a long stick in his hand that he used to reach out to the hat. With a single flick of his wrist, a movement so delicate it was like he was picking a flower, the stick caught the hat and he raised into his hands. He wrapped his hands greedily around the hat like a hoarding goblin guarding his stolen treasure.

“You bloody liar, you cheated!” Wilbur said.

“Actually, I won this race.”

“You didn’t win anything.”

Tommy held up the hat, as if the sight of it alone was enough of a statement. “Look, fella, we decided that the one who got the hat first won. It’s in my hand now so obviously, I won.”

He scoffed. “If you finished the countdown like you were supposed to, you would've lost.”

“I said you can start running after I counted to three. I never said _I _couldn’t.”__

“That was as good as a criminal confession," he exclaimed, incredulous.

He shrugged. “I still won in the end.”

He sighed. It was a very long, deep sigh he released only whenever Tommy was being particularly insufferable. “Gremlin child,” he muttered, shaking his head disapprovingly. "I shouldn't even be surprised by this, considering it's you."

“Oh, come off. You’re such a hypocrite.”

Wilbur made a face. “Pardon?”

“You keep talking about it like it’s so wrong and all," he said, glaring. “But you’ve done the exact same thing to me a hundred times before.”

“When have I ever cheated?” Wilbur said, voice shrill and defensive.

Tommy cocked his eyebrow disbelievingly. There was no need to name all the times, both of them already had a list of several occasions drawn up in their heads. He’d tricked Tommy an umpteen number of times, whether it be in stupid bets to decide who got the last chocolate chip cookie or in intense matches of Monopoly played in the living room. Sometimes, he didn’t even do it to gain anything, he just found the sight of a fuming Tommy very amusing (he was called sadistic for this by Schlatt. Clearly, he hadn’t spent enough time with Tommy).

He submitted to defeat, lazily gesturing towards the hat. “Fine. If we were meant to play by my set of rules, I suppose I’d have to consider you’d be the winner.”

"Wait, really?" Tommy said. He looked caught off guard, as if even he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.

"Yes, really."

Instantaneously, a smile broke out across his face. The lines of silver braces on his teeth only made the expression look more winsome. “Let’s go!” Tommy howled, loud and rapturous.

“Listen, I’m only giving you the win,” he said, cutting through his excited screams. “‘cause I feel nice today. I’m using this exact same bullshit logic on you next time, though."

“Oh, what was that? Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the sound of my victory,” Tommy said, emphasis dripping on the last word in a gloating lilt. He held up the hat proudly, like it wasn't a straw sunhat but an Olympic gold medal.

Wilbur rolled his eyes. But there was a smile on his face. “Never mind.”

Tommy grinned. “Yeah, that’s right, bitch. I won this!”

“Yeah, yeah. For how long are you going to boast about this?”

“I will never shut up about this.”

“I was afraid of that answer.”

Tommy promptly stuck his tongue out at him. The expression was so childish and stupid that it was strongly reminiscent of grade-school Tommy. A memory flashed through his head, of a little boy with unruly blonde hair and tousled, dirty overalls, scratched knees and bandaged elbows, who'd hide behind Phil's cloak shyly whenever he met a stranger and held Tubbo’s hand with a vehement commitment. The image burst Wilbur into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Tommy laughed too, and the two of them fell backwards on the grass, chortling and snorting together.

Once they’d stopped, the boys breathed in the earthy scent of rain coating the grass and soaked in the warmth of the glimmering sun. There was a certain lethargy present in the air, the type that only came during perfect summer days like this. It was like feeling nostalgia for a moment that wasn’t even a memory yet. He closed his eyes.

From the instant he’d woken up, he’d been followed by the eerie sensation that he was stuck in a dream. As Tommy got up and started showing off about his win again (this time by prancing around and loudly hooting), he noticed that, for the first time, the mortifying feeling was entirely gone. The dread filling his belly had shrunk away, the raised hair on his arms were settled and even his headache had worn off. He knew his sudden recovery was only thanks to one thought: that everything around him was too elaborate to be fake. The ladybug crawling over the grass blade, the melodious tweets of the birds in the background, the sunset that tinted the sky a deeper hue as it fell further and shifted the shadows of the trees rimming the meadow’s edge. The scene was far too detailed to be duplicated inside his mind. Most of all, Wilbur thought, it was Tommy who comforted him, who anchored him to reality. Because Tommy was too Tommy-like to be anything but real. The cheated race, the debate about who the winner, even the childish display of triumph written on his face. Wilbur knew it was him.

A lightness possessed his body, a certain carefreeness that he hadn’t felt in a long time. He was happy.

“Hey, Wilbur. How do I look?” He looked up. The sun hat’s floppy, wide brim already made it look ridiculously large but pulled over ten-year old Tommy’s head, it looked like it truly belonged to a giant. It hooded his entire face, covering his eyes and forehead, leaving only his ever-present grin on display.

“You look so stupid,” he said, honestly.

Tommy lifted the tip of his hat upwards so Wilbur could see his eyes and experience the full force of his glare. Wilbur laughed. Raising himself up on his elbows, he said, “I’m kidding, you only look half as stupid as usual. Now give it to me, I want to try it on..”

He scowled, pulling the hat off to reveal the head of messy, blonde tufts underneath. “No, get up and get it yourself.”

“Or you could walk over here and hand it to me,” Wilbur said. “You’re hardly two feet away.”

“If I’m only two feet away, why can’t you get it yourself?”

Their arguments never ceased to amaze him with their stupidity. He stood up and walked to Tommy, extending his hand expectantly. But the boy glowered at his waiting palm and pointedly turned the other way, his back facing him.

“You prick! Hand it over,” Wilbur said hotly.

“No, I don’t think I will,” Tommy said matter-of-factly. “I’ve decided that this is mine for now and I’d like to keep it.”

“You can’t keep the hat.”

“I can.”

“You can’t.”

“I will.”

“I walked all this way here to get it, it’s only fair that you allow me to have it.”

“You should’ve been nicer the first you asked. Maybe we wouldn’t be having this conversation, then.”

Why didn’t I predict this? Wilbur thought, mentally groaning. In the first week of school, Tommy had driven the teachers half-mad. In all those weeks of summer holidays, they’d been preparing themselves for clingy, wailing children who cried out for their parents in a mess of snot and hiccups. In reality, they should’ve been readying themselves for a certain blonde-haired devil, who threatened to stick forks into power sockets when they didn’t listen to his demands and set the class pet hamster loose into the school playground as revenge for being put in timeout. If only they’d known that Tommy was as wild as a pack of lit dynamite and that trying to control that explosion would only increase its force. Ordering him around would only result in a higher number of his wild antics.

He knew he’d dug himself into his own hole. But Wilbur couldn’t be bested by his little brother twice in a day. He sprung forward and attempted to snatch the hat out from Tommy’s hand. The boy dodged, ducking under Wilbur’s outstretched arm, and flung the hat sideways. It flew through the air like a frisbee away from them.

“Hah! Who’s becoming predictable now?” He puffed out his chest, like he’d said something especially clever for which he deserved praise.

Wilbur narrowed his eyes. “If you don’t give it to me, I’ll hide your discs.”

Tommy’s bravado instantly cracked. His eyes, which had been fizzling with joy, now grew big and wobbly. The note of fear and apprehension in his voice was heavy. “You’re not actually gonna, are you?”

“I will,” he remarked loudly. “I’ll hide them while you’re at school, at some place you’ll never be able to find.”

“Really? No, you won’t.”

“Do you really believe I’m bluffing, Tommy? In third grade, I hid your discs so well you weren’t able to find them for weeks on end. What makes you think anything’s stopping me from doing it again?” Wilbur whispered, low and theatrical.

“You’re the worst, Wilbur. The absolute worst. I hate you,” Tommy grumbled, trudging away solemnly.

“Yes, I know. It feels great,” he said, grinning. “Now get me Niki’s hat.”

“I’m getting it, your arsehole. Wait.”

His entire body came to a sudden standstill as he reached the river bank. His eyes widened in shock and his lips fell into a perfect ‘o’ shape.

“Tommy? What happened?” he said warily.

“I think I messed up, Wilbur.”

“What did you do this time?” he said, shuffling forward beside Tommy. His eyes immediately landed in the middle of the river where he saw a small, straw hat was being ruthlessly choked by the fierce, rushing tides. The only thing stopping it from being swept away by the river was the tattered bow, which had clung onto the edge of a rock.

"So you remember how I threw the hat away when you were trying to steal it? Yeah, I might’ve accidentally tossed back into the river and well…”

“Tommy," he groaned exasperatedly. "Why would you do that?"

"I don't know, I panicked!” Tommy confessed.

Wilbur sighed. "That was Niki's hat.”

“I know.”

“It wasn’t even mine. If it was mine, it wouldn’t have been that bad.”

“I know.”

“She made all this food for us and we couldn't even take care of one thing for her."

“Oh, I know, I know. Be quiet,” Tommy snapped. Wilbur glanced at him. Even though his angry outburst might’ve looked apathetic to others, he could clearly see the guilt in his brother, written in the creases of his frown, the concerned pinch in his voice as he spoke.

He laid his hand on Tommy’s shoulder heavily. “It’s okay, you didn’t mean it. Niki will understand.” But his words were met with little appreciation.

Tommy nudged off his hand and stalked dangerously close to the river bank, peering over it’s rocky side into the water blow. He pursed his lips in a thoughtful expression, his eyes formed into a calculating gaze. Before Wilbur could say another word, Tommy plunged headfirst into the river.

He froze. He could barely understand what happened. One moment, Tommy was sitting cross-legged, gleefully smiling at him with the straw hat encased in his arms, and the next he was gone, engulfed in the icy, blue depths underneath. The sound of a loud gasp brought him back. He looked down to see Tommy’s head bobbing out of the water. He was heaving in effort, struggling to fight the force of the current to merely stay afloat.

“What are you doing?” Wilbur said, crouched beside the rocks. “You’re going to get sick, you idiot. Come back!”

Tommy ignored him. He swung his head around in search of Niki's hat and, apparently not finding it, ducked underwater. For the next few minutes, Wilbur, anxiously cocooned into his spot, waited for his little brother’s head to resurface. Tension pooled in his stomach as the time trickled by without any sign of him and the web of anxiety knitted around his lungs only loosened when Tommy’s head finally popped out of the water. His arms and legs kicked into motion and he swam to the side of the river, clinging to the grass and rocks to stay put.

His blonde hair, usually puffy and curled, was stuck to the sides of his face in thick, wet locks. They hugged his cheeks in a way that made his face look even tiny, but even then, the manic grin plastered over his face was impossible to miss. He shook his hand aggressively and Wilbur saw the reason for his excitement: clutched his right hand was Niki’s hat.

Wilbur laughed, so deep and intense that his entire body wracked with the fits of giggles overtaking him. The relief was near intoxicating. He leaned over the edge and flashed a smile at Tommy.

“Well done. But you’re a moron, Tommy,” he yelled out to him. “Why would you do that? You could’ve gotten hurt.”

“But I didn’t!” he shouted back indignantly, as if it was an acceptable excuse. “I got what I wanted.”

“The risk of drowning is not equivalent to that,” he pointed out.

Tommy cocked an eyebrow in confusion. “What?” he said loudly. “Speak louder, dickhead. I can’t hear shit from down here.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Wilbur chuckled. “What’s important is that you’re safe. Get out now.”

That was an order that even Tommy couldn’t defy. Taking a steadying breath, he pushed up his tiny body onto the river bank. But he quickly fell back into the water. His face contorted into a frustrated scowl. He pushed himself out again but, once again, fell back in as soon as he attempted to climb out. Dread curled in Wilbur’s stomach. Years of climbing trees with Tubbo during games of hide and seek or tag and clambering onto their house’s rooftop daily to stargaze had made Tommy more nimble than any of the three brothers.

It wasn’t Tommy’s body that was failing him. Something else was pulling him down.

He saw it a second before it happened. The slither of black liquid that appeared between the white froth and splashes, the way Tommy’s body lurched back in an odd, angular arch, the confusion that rained on his face as he was pulled back. Wilbur was only too slow to stop it. A thick line of black tar rose from the water and wrapped itself around Tommy’s stomach and yanked him backwards. He was propelled into the water, his horrified screams breaking into indiscernible sounds as he went underwater.

A beat of silence passed. He became vaguely aware of the fact that the birds had stopped singing and the cicadas hum had faded away, even the slight rustle of the grass from the rushing wind had ceased. The only sound was the river’s.

“Tommy?” Wilbur called out. “Tommy, come out. Please.”

Nothing.

“Tommy, please. This isn’t funny, come out.”

Panic ballooned in his chest, threatening to explode when he caught sight of blood pooling in the water. He tore off his beanie and leather boots and jumped into the river.

Rock flashed before his eyes as he fell and splintered the river surface. The chill of the water hit his skin at once, embracing it with an excruciating grip. During Techno’s third trip to Antarctica, the ice he was standing on had cracked open and he’d fallen into the ocean. According to Phil, his usually muscular, robust body had furled into a convulsing, shivering mess by the time he fished him out. He’d nearly died of hypothermia. Wilbur wondered if this was what he’d felt like. Those frigid waves choking him and any feeling slowly slipping out from his limbs, leaving them shaking and paralyzed.

How had Tommy survived this? He hated the cold almost as much as Wilbur and yet, he’d looked like he was going for a pleasant dip in the jacuzzi when he’d talked to him – Wilbur’s eyes widened. Tommy! He needed to look for Tommy. The reminder of his little brother reignited him. His arms thrashed this way and he managed to swim upwards. Wilbur’s head broke through the surface with a sputtering gasp and he desperately gulped down air.

He started calling out Tommy’s name, until his voice was raw and ragged from exertion, and scoured the depths of the water with his gaze. After he’d thrust his head underwater for the fourth time, he saw Tommy’s red sneaker peek out from the periphery of his vision. Wilbur’s head snapped sideways and he rushed ahead, gritting his teeth as each movement sluiced his body with waves of icy water.

The next few seconds were a blur. Dark water riddled with crimson and viscous tar stung his eyes strongly as he grabbed an arm or a led and pedalled upwards. Reaching the ledge of the river, Wilbur hauled Tommy’s dripping body onto the ground, grunting in effort. He pulled himself up next.

During his trip underwater, his surroundings had completely changed. Expanses of grey, bristled grass stretched before him. The pastel color palette of the sky was gone, replaced by a bleak, leaden grey . Thick clouds rolled overhead and obscured the sun, throwing the meadow into a gloomy shadow. The line of trees fringing the field were now a long fence of thin, barren pickets. The few leaves left behind on their branches were crackled and dead, most lying in desolate piles on the ground. The wind was harsh and cutting and the air was occupied by a deep tension that hadn't been there before.

He could barely register anything happening around him, let alone the insanity of the fact that the entirely new environment had been magically conjured. Wilbur was too concerned with stopping his body from freezing on spot. His teeth were chattering and his body was trembling so badly he could hardly sit still. His breath came out in big, white puffs, the warm breath evaporating in front of his eyes in thin wisps. Under his soaked, yellow sweater, goosebumps trailed the flesh of his arms and his brown hair was wet and slippery, plastered against his forehead. This doesn’t make any sense, he thought, hugging his shivering body. How is it so cold during the summer?

He turned to Tommy as the boy let out a strangled cough.

Tommy's skin was pale and white as freshly fallen snow. Slivers of black tar dripped out of his thin lips and his eyes were solid black pits, fixated on some faraway spot in the distance. Worst of all was the wound in his stomach, a deep gash from which blood, threaded with sticky black liquid, streamed out of and pooled onto the ground, tainting the grass a sickly dark hue. What happened to him? Wilbur thought, horrified.

“Tommy,” he whispered, fear dripping from his voice in thick droplets. With his horrifying eyes and ghostly complexion, Wilbur was no longer sure if he was scared for him or of him.

“Tommy, say something. Are you okay?”

He let out a pained groan in response. A hand came to clutch his bloody side. Wilbur tried to find the picnic blanket they’d left behind to wrap around Tommy’s wound and stop the blood flow but there was nothing left behind. Except for slopes of dark grey grass dotted with dead flowers, the meadow looked as though it’d been untouched and unlived in for the years. Turning back to Tommy and repressing the rising bile in his throat, he pressed his hands against the wound. Dark goo leaked through his fingers and the boy hissed in pain.

“Wilbur?”

“Y–yes?”

“Wilbur, is that you?”

“It’s me, Tommy. Can you hear me?”

“I can. I can’t see you, though. Where are you?” His blinking, black eyes seemed even more ominous now.

“I’m right here. I’m sitting beside you, see?” With his left hand still pressed against the gaping wound, Wilbur grasped Tommy’s hand. Slick, bloody fingers interlaced with smaller, ice-cold ones. His body loosened, some of the tension trickling out as their locked their fingers together.

“Can you see anything?”

“I can.”

“Well, how is that fair?” Tommy scowled. “How have I gone blind earlier than an old man like you?”

“I–” Wilbur frowned, confused but pleased with the unexpected turn of conversation. “I’m not old.”

“You are, you are so old.”

“I’m not, you’re just a child. You can’t comprehend the fact that anyone above the age of eighteen exists.”

“I am not a child! I am a huge man.”

Laughter bubbled out of Wilbur’s throat. Guilt squeezed his stomach as he did, but he couldn’t stop. Tommy tried laughing too, but it cut off to a guttural cough immediately and his fingers twisted tightly in Wilbur’s hand as another spasm of pain hit him. The small bit of calm that’d formed in him was shattered.

“My stomach. It hurts.”

“Yes, you’re badly injured,” Wilbur said, tightening his hold on Tommy’s hand, as if that action alone could ward off the pain. “What happened down there?”

“I dunno. I couldn’t see much. I had the hat. I was trying to get out but… something grabbed me.” His words were sluggish and soft, bubbling out of his mouth in weak spurts. “It cut me. Hurt like hell.”

He swallowed, the thick, stinging glob of bile dangerously close to blocking his throat. “It’s okay if you were hurt. You’ll be fine.”

Tommy was quiet.

“We’re going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay,” he repeated. His silence had stretched to the point it was unbearable. “We’ll be home soon.”

“I don’t know, big man.” Spittle dribbled out his lips in the form of black tar as he spoke. He let out an exasperated bark of laughter as it dripped down his chin. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Nothing is going to happen to you.” As much as Wilbur wanted to believe those words, even he couldn’t ignore the thorn of doubt poking him. Tommy’s breath was ragged, exhales so slow it was like he was forcefully wrenching each one out of his throat. His wound was leaking, the blood flow seemingly endless. Each drop that slipped out was stranger and darker than the previous, the red coloring near entirely erased under a blanket of inky black. The stifling, dead meadow pressed in on him and his words felt flimsy and weak.

“I feel… so cold and lonely.” . Disorientation wrung his words into a barely coherent mumble. “It’s so fuckin’ dark in here.”

He gripped Tommy’s hand tightly. “Do you want to leave?”

“Can we?”

“Of course, we can.”

Wilbur extended his arms, meaning to scoop him up and carry him home to bed. He’d already done it countless times before when Tommy was younger and would fall asleep in the living room. But this time, it was different. The second Wilbur attempted to lift him off the ground, his body began spasming. Choked gasps escaped his lips and he twisted himself out of his brother’s arm, roughly slipping to the ground.

“What happened?” he asked, crouching down beside him. His face was pulled taut with tension.

“It hurts,” he moaned. “It hurts too much to move.”

Tommy’s wound seemed more apparent than ever now. A glaring hole ripped through his body. Puddles of black blood stood out starkly against the bleak, dulled grey of the grass.

“I know it does,” he said gently. “But you need to be strong. We have to leave.”

He tried grabbing hold of him again, but the boy shrunk away from him like a terrified mouse. “Tommy.” Wilbur’s voice was lowered to that patronizing tone it always adopted when he was trying to furtively tell him to shut up and listen, like when he’d say something particularly offensive to a guest without realizing. Except the note of desperation in his voice was so much more potent now. It twisted his voice into a barely recognizable croak.

“Let me stay here, please.”

“No. That’s out of the question.”

“Please, Will.”

“Don’t,” he warned. Frustration pickled under his skin strongly, barely contained under a fragile mask of restraint.

He massaged his temple, where the headache had returned in the form of a raging migraine. “I’ll simply have to wait until you fall unconscious. With the rate at which you’re losing blood. it’ll happen any second now. I’ll carry you home after that. It’s possible. It can work.”

Tommy shook his head. “Let me stay here.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No,” he said.

“It’s so much better here.”

“It’s not.”

Tommy paused, his breath staggered, splitting into weak gasps. The effort of speaking seemed to be crushing him. “Why aren’t you fucking letting me stay?”

“Because I’m not going to let you die here and do nothing about it!” Wilbur screamed at him.

As if the words had unlatched some tightly shackled dam, a wave of heaving sobs hit him. His face crumpled and thick, salty tears slid down his face. They slipped off his cheeks and dissolved in the sticky solution of blood and tar that painted his knuckles.

Every winter, he dreaded having to supervise Tommy and Tubbo’s playdates. What was the fun of being forced to sit on a dingy, cold bench in sub-zero degree temperature and watch two children play pirates? When he was twelve – an age at which, according to Techno, he had ‘a pride large enough to rival Achilles’ – he came up with a plan to escape that chore. He thought he could outsmart everyone by dropping off Tommy at the park, sneaking away to Schlatt's (where they'd make gingerbread houses together, what he'd planned to before he had to play nanny for the weekend) and arrive back two hours later to walk the two back home, making it seem as though he’d been with them the whole time. Of course, the entire spiel had ended disastrously. Wilbur, too occupied with attempting to impress Schlatt with his cookie-dough architecture, had ended up running late. Tommy and Tubbo had decided to wander off into the woods on their own in the meantime which led to Phil arriving home to find a crying Tommy in the kitchen because oh, no Tubbo’s head has gotten stuck inside an empty beehive, Dad, what do I do?

The force of the vertigo crushed his head as he recalled it, sending his head spinning. Wilbur remembered each detail of that day perfectly. How Phil had unleashed a hurricane of fury on him, intense enough that everyone in the neighborhood had been quaking in fear for him. The way Phil’s usually bright, twinkly eyes had dimmed into a dull, flickering light of disappointment as he’d turned away from him.

What would happen now when Phil found out what happened to Tommy? What would Techno think? How shitty of a brother was Wilbur must be to leave his brother like this?

“Am I really going to die, Will?”

The naivety in Tommy’s voice broke his heart a thousand times over.

Cursing himself for making Tommy worry again, he stifled his childish sobs and nudged himself closer to Tommy. Carefully, he raised his brother’s head onto his lap. Wilbur brushed the wet hair out of his face, exposing his blind, inky eyes to the darkened sky above. He brushed Tommy’s forehead gently, swiping the wet hair out of his face and exposing his blind, black eyes to the darkened sky above.

“No,” he said. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“How... how do you know?”

“Because Techno and Phil are on their way on. They told me so.” His voice was so bold and confident, reassuring. “They’re far away, but they’ll be here soon, ad once they come, you’ll be safe. You know they’d never let anything bad happen to you. They love you too much.”

Tommy’s hand crawled up and shakily grasped his hand. Wilbur curled his fingers around his palm, His breathing was so, so slow at this point. It was a miracle he was even conscious at this point. “Tell me more,” he said, voice trembling. “It feels lonely if you stop talking."

He bit down on his lip to stop himself from crying.

“When we get back,” he continued. “I’ll take you over to Schlatt's. He’ll be so worried, hah! But yu know he is, he'll never try to show it. He'll hand you around a hundred different blankets to wrap yourself in so you're not cold, but will never admit it's because he's worried.” He smiled in spite of himself. There was something about the memory of Schlatt that always felt oddly comforting, like warm ale drank on a cold winter night.

“I'll call Niki over, too. She’ll make you a nice pie. The best, in fact. I’ll ask her to specifically make your favorite blueberry crumble pie. We’ll sit by the fire and eat it all together," he said, stroking Tommy’s head. “Me, you and Niki and Schlatt. I'll invite over Tubbo too, of course. I know you'd kill me if I didn't. You two are stupidly inseparable.” He paused, breathing slowly as he brushed his hair.

“Do you get it? You’ll never be alone. There will always be people around you who love and care for you. You’ll remember that, won’t you, Tommy. Tommy?” He glanced down at him.

“Tommy?”

His body wasn’t moving.

Wilbur didn’t need to whisper his name again. He already knew what happened. A sputtered cry erupted from the back of his throat. He took in the form of his brother’s still body. Still cradled in his lap, he cupped his brother’s face in his hands and kissed Tommy’s forehead. He thought he should be crying. But it was like his tears were all used up.

A tiny fleck of white landed on his blonde hair. Wilbur blinked. The flakes were small and delicate and dissolved at the first touch of his finger tip. Ripping his eyes from Tommy, he glanced up at the sky.

It was snowing.

*

Wilbur woke up with a gasp.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading. i think i legitimately lost my mind writing this during my skl exams, but it was worth it AYYYE. i know the first chapter might be a bit confusing, but everything will be explained during the next. 
> 
> tell me what U thought in the comments:")


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